


something supernatural

by theflyjar



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Biting, Blood Drinking, F/M, Fem!lay, Heterosexual Sex, Smut, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex, Vampires, Yifan Makes Questionable Life Decisions, Yixing and Yifan are Idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-23 03:44:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyjar/pseuds/theflyjar
Summary: [Self-Prompt] He was a rational person, he knew that the existence of the supernatural had to be some kind of fallacy, and what he had experienced just didn’t fit with that. He had felt the pain of teeth sinking into his flesh. He knew it was real. But, it didn’t feel it.





	something supernatural

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods of this fest who have been lovely enough all the way through this fest. And thank you to K, you helped me through my internal meltdown (as always).

“Please, I need it,” Yifan heard somebody plead. It was a woman, and distress coloured every tone that came from her mouth. “I wouldn’t have come to find you if I wasn’t desperate.”

There were multiple footsteps echoing through the street as Yifan moved to turn around the corner, towards where the voices were coming from. He paused for a moment, not wanting to get involved in an argument between people on the street. Instead, he looked down at the instant ramen he’d bought from the convenience store.

The noodles were already soft enough to eat. He knew he should have waited until he got back to his apartment before putting water in it. But, he’d been too impatient. He assumed he could have eaten it on his way home and thrown the empty cup into the public bin in front of his apartment building.

He merely wanted to get back, to eat his noodles and hope to get some sleep. It was past one in the morning and Yifan was tired. He just wished to eat and sleep. He did not want to be involved in any public spat. He did not have the energy. Eight a.m. lectures had been killing him.

“Yixin, I can’t,” another voice replied, a man. He sounded sympathetic, not angry. “I told you, you’re going to have to find somebody else to do this for you.”

“Please, I’ve left it too long,” the woman croaked out, “and it’s starting to hurt. I’ll take anything. Just, help me. I’m begging you here. I’ll pay you extra. I’ll leave you alone after this one time. I’ll do anything.”

The man was quiet for a while and Yifan was sure things would die down, so he stepped forward once more.

“I’m sorry,” the man apologised. Yifan was instantly annoyed as he stopped walking again. Instead, he leant against the wall to his side and began to use the thin wooden disposable chopsticks to shovel noodles into his mouth.

“I told you last time that I wouldn’t do this for you. For anyone. And I know you’re one of my better clients. You’ve never missed a payment, you’ve always been polite and you’ve never threatened me. But, you know my family situation has changed. I can’t keep risking my job like this. I’m sorry, Yixin.”

Yifan felt his curiosity grow as his stomach filled, his hunger-driven anger dying off slowly with every bite and swallow of his food. The noodles really had been perfect to eat as he stopped. So, instead of letting his frustration grow, Yifan listened. And he did so carefully.

“Please, I’m worried about what I’ll do if I can’t get any,” the girl cried, her words bracketed by, what sounded like, genuine sobs.

“Yixin, I’m sorry,” the man repeated, which was quickly followed by the sound of a door closing.

Crying could be heard in the street. The girl, whose name Yifan guessed was Yixin, was distraught. It was the weak sounds of her weeping that had Yifan looking back down at his noodles, sighing. He drank as much of the watery fluid as he could, without spilling it down himself, and scarfed the noodles down like that. Yifan had hoped to have been able to at least enjoy his limp dinner in peace. But, he knew that wasn’t an option as he jogged back down closer to the convenience store to throw the empty pot into the bin.

He ran the rest of the way up the street, turning the corner without taking a single pause, and he could see a figure crouched abysmally to the ground.

“Hey,” he called out, “are you okay?”

The girl stood up quickly, obviously, too quickly, as she stumbled once she was upright. She moved in a way that made it look like she was drunk, or that her head was spinning. And Yifan panicked as he neared her. He had no idea what to do, or what to say, or even why he was going to her aid. He just knew he couldn’t leave her crying in the street. Not when it was so late at night.  
Her waist-length black hair swirled around her as she struggled to find the correct footing until she just went limp. It was her legs that went first, buckling at the knees and the rest of her body followed suit. The last thing that touched the ground were the ends of her hair, which finally hit the concrete as Yifan reached her.

He was suddenly awash with worry. He had absolutely no idea what had happened to the girl and he looked up at the apartment building, hoping that the man she had been arguing with would reappear. When a few moments passed, Yifan knew he would have no such luck. He was on his own. And his eyes went blank. He recalled as many scenes from films that he could and hoped that imitating them would be good enough to help the stranger.

Yifan crouched down beside her and pressed his fingers to her cheeks, trying to check her for signs of illness. All that met him was the feeling of skin that had once been warm but, instead, were cold to the touch. And pale, even in the sodium orange glow of the streetlights. He checked for the feeling of her heartbeat at her neck and felt it pulse gently against his middle and index fingers. With the relief that her heart was working steadily, he could reassure himself that she wasn’t dead. That maybe the cool feeling of her skin may have just been her natural temperature.

Yifan tried shaking her awake, keeping as quiet as possible. He didn’t want to scare her if she came back around suddenly. But, she was out cold. The only time he had ever seen anything similar was when he had been to one of Zitao’s martial arts competitions. A powerfully mean kick had come from Zitao’s leg and struck his opponent on the side of his head, to which the opponent crumpled to the floor, and remained there until a stretcher was brought.

That thought made Yifan aware that he needed to get the girl to medical help.

He pulled out his phone and looked to see where the closest hospital was, which had him struggling to type with shaking fingers. He groaned when he saw it was far away - his panic spiking as he saw as such - but he had no idea if the girl’s case was an emergency enough to warrant calling for an ambulance. Instead, he looked up and let his eyes stare down the street towards his apartment.

The university medical centre wasn’t far from where he lived, and he knew it would be open. Looking at the girl’s slight frame, Yifan guessed he could carry her there without injuring himself, too, in the process. So, using the technique his mother always used with him when he was younger, he pulled her up until he was cradling her in front of himself. He got his hand caught in her hair - he guessed his palms had grown clammy as his nerves set in. Yifan untangled them carefully before struggling to slip his arm back, more securely, around her.

Sucking oxygen into his lungs, Yifan tried to walk. It was clear he hadn’t quite adjusted to the weight of holding another person, no matter how lightly she weighed, as he stumbled forward over his own feet. Once he had righted himself, Yifan took care to tread more steadily. He glanced down at the girl after every few steps, looking out for whether she showed any signs of coming back around. Especially after he shifted his arms around, hoping to get a better grip around her body to ensure that she wouldn’t fall to the ground.

When he came to the university’s infirmary, the woman working behind the desk instantly rushed to grab a wheelchair that was parked up against the wall and wheeled it to Yifan’s side. He set the girl onto it, explaining what had happened as he did so. The woman nodded and called for somebody else to come help them.

“We’ll put her in the next room,” a nurse told Yifan. “There was a fight at a party, so we’re a bit busy with trying to sort out the injured people from that. And, it’s just the two of us working tonight. She may have to wait a little bit to be seen.”

Yifan looked around him and saw eight students, all with bleeding noses and slightly swollen eyes. They were squabbling between themselves, too preoccupied with whatever they had been fighting over to notice Yifan’s entrance to the building. They looked too drunk and too amped up to fight for Yifan’s liking. But, he understood. He nodded his head.

The other one stepped to hold onto the handles of the wheelchair, “We’ll get her onto the bed in the doctor’s consultation room. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be in the examination room with all the bloody noses and knuckles from the drunken brawl these boys have had.”

Yifan followed slightly behind as they led the way to the room, helping the two nurses lift the girl from where they’d sat her and up onto the bed, laying her out flat.

“She could be a bit disoriented when she wakes up and may try to roll onto her side. And, because this is an examination table, she could fall to the ground. So, stay here and make sure she stays like this. I’ll grab you a cup of water, you can either drink it yourself or save it to give to her. It’s up to you.”

The one who spoke walked out of the room, returning with a small disposable plastic cup filled with water, whilst the remaining one gave Yifan the doctor’s chair for him to sit in. The two of them smiled at him gently as he sat, placing the cup down on the doctor’s desk that was next to him.

“We’ll try to see her as soon as we can,” one of the nurses assured him, “when these guys are out of the way.”

Yifan muttered a quick thank you and rubbed his face, listening to them close the door as quietly as they could. He took a few breaths in. He was still exhausted, and carrying another person through the streets at one in the morning hadn’t helped with that. He wanted to sleep and wake up late the next morning.

Still, when he looked up at how pale the girl was, especially in contrast to her dark hair, he knew he had to stay until she was feeling better. That feeling is what had Yifan standing from his chair and making her more comfortable on the bed, as well as taking off his jacket to drape over her body. He took her shoes off and placed them onto the floor.

It took him a few minutes to shuffle back up to her head, where he delicately lifted her head and brought her hair out from under her body, pulling it over her shoulders. He moved strands away from her face, tracing his gaze down her face and over each of her features.

She - _Yixin_ \- was almost translucent to look at. Her eyelids looked like a few layers of tissue paper, her cheeks sagged down tiredly and her lips were pale, more white than the blue Yifan would expect. Her lower lip strained under something on either side, making it out like she was biting on her lip. Yifan hesitated as he pulled on it with his thumb, hoping to loosen it up. However, when her lips returned to where they had been, they still appeared dented with bitten tension.

He attempted to tug it loose again and again. He frowned when each attempt failed.

Scared that she could have had something stuck in her mouth, Yifan split her lips apart and pulled his fingers away quickly.

Beneath where Yixin’s lips sat were two perfectly white and dangerously long canines. Yifan felt his pulse rise. It thundered in his ears. His own heartbeat was so loud, it was the soundtrack to him double-checking what he had seen as he parted Yixin’s lips. He didn’t withdraw his fingertips as quickly that time around, he kept them there as he observed them over and over again. He could see them, the brightest of whites protruding from pale gums.

In a moment of sheer, and dumb, curiosity, Yifan pressed his right index finger against one of the teeth, pricking it. A small droplet of blood bubbled up onto the tip of it and dropped down into Yixin’s mouth. Her eyelids flickered.

Somewhat encouraged by the action, Yifan pressed his finger harder against the tooth, allowing more blood to dribble out in a small trail. Yixin’s eyes flicked around under their covers even more and Yifan could feel the extra pressure applied to his finger, from Yixin’s side. Her mouth opened wider after a moment and Yifan took his finger away.

“Please,” he heard the girl’s weakened voice call out, eyes screwed up in agony and lips a shade or two pinker than they had been. “Please, help me.”

Yifan stared at his finger for a moment, breathing heavy and curiosity fading into fear. He knew the saying about the cat, and he knew that his heart would race its way out of his chest if he didn’t do anything. From that moment onwards, Yifan knew he needed to do something. Run away or stay, those were his choices. And he didn’t know what to pick. He didn’t know what would happen if he were to give more of his blood to the stranger. He didn’t know what would happen if he left her, either.

His thoughts flicked to the nurses, to the bloodied faces in the waiting area, and knew what would be the right choice for the being in front of him. He let his eyes drift to his arm, to where he could see veins forking in his wrists, vibrant and blue and _full._

Without thinking much more about it, he slid his wristwatch off and placed the tender part of his wrist between Yixin’s widened mouth, and her tongue cushioned it from underneath. She cut into him quickly thereafter. The only comparable feeling he had was when he had his helix pierced - the sharp initial hit then the warm numbness of fast swelling.

His blood pumped itself out of the bitten wounds, down into her mouth and he could feel the gentle suction of her lips and the twitching gulps of her throat. The more she drank, the more colour returned to her cheeks, the vibrancy of the stray droplets of Yifan’s blood looking less and less stark as the moments passed.

After a while, two slender fingered hands moved up to cup at his wrist and a pair of eyes opened after a minute. They locked onto him, dark and desperate. It barely took five minutes for the girl to bring her teeth away from Yifan’s flesh, right when a ripple of fiery pain pulsed through his arm. She was gentle with releasing his wrist with a limp nudge of her tongue and she stared silently. The feeling of her weighted sight on him could be felt as he stared at the puncture marks in his arm.

Blood still came up and out of the holes, which led to him reaching for a stack of tissues sat on beside the sink on the other side of the room. He applied pressure to the wound and stumbled to sit back into the seat with his head spinning.

There was a pulsing at his wrist, something he could solely compare to the feeling of skin being pulled back away from his arm. He gripped at it and it felt white hot, like an infected wound. Still, he exhaled his way through it, trying to pace how he registered the ripping sensations.

“Drink the water,” she urged him. “It’ll help, with the blood loss and the pain.”

And Yifan slid his arm between his knees, hoping the pressure would be enough to stop the bleeding as he reached for the cup. He didn’t want to gulp it, the coldness of the water too much of a shock to his mouth, so he sipped it.

Yifan jolted when cool fingers pressed on his forearm, drawing his hand away from his lap and into Yixin’s palms. It stole every ounce of the soreness away. She applied the pressure, albeit weakly. But, Yifan knew the slight elevation would help get the blood to stop. They were quiet for a long time, avoiding eye contact and avoiding speaking.

It was when Yifan tried to withdraw his arm, hoping to put his watch back on, that Yixin’s fingers tightened around his hand and arm. He glanced at her, both fearful and interested.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice steady and full of gratitude. “Thank you for doing this for me.”

She leant past him, opening up a first aid box with one hand and picking out some gauze. Yixin wrapped Yifan’s arm up, murmuring about how her saliva would kill any infectious bacteria in and around the wound. Yifan nodded his head, taking the opportunity to draw his arm away and clasp his watch back around his wrist, and Yixin purely stared. Her eyes were a constant on Yifan as he clipped the buckle of his watch back into place and shook his arm to make it sit comfortably.

The wound throbbed gently and he ran his thumb over it a few times before leaving it alone.

“Not many people would have done that,” Yixin broke the silence again, her eyes no longer stagnant on Yifan’s face, but dancing up and down his body. “Not for a stranger, at least.”

“You needed help.”

“And you wanted to protect all the other people outside of this room.”

Yifan shrugged his shoulders, not even denying it. He wondered if Yixin was offended by that, but knew she wasn’t when he looked at her. She was smiling at him, leaning forward on the examination table, and her hair just touched her thighs as she did so. There was a dimple on her cheek, an element of childish beauty on her near-on perfect face.

“It’s an admirable thing to do,” she remarked, “to protect strangers, who probably would have left you to the hands of the starved vampire. It almost makes me wonder what your name is.”

“Yifan,” he replied, fingers finding his watch again. His thumb rubbing the fastening. “Wu Yifan.”

“I’m Zhang Yixin,” she lifted one hand and ran it through her hair, drawing the long tresses away from her face. She didn’t look particularly happy. In fact, she seemed virtually forlorn and lost where she sat. “And, I’m also sorry that you had to do this, you shouldn’t have had to do that for me.”

“I guess it’s okay,” he muttered. “I’m not hurt.”

“But you could have been,” she noted, leaning back slightly. “What you did was actually incredibly foolish.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Yifan smiled. “Like I said, you needed help.”

“You shouldn’t help people at the cost of your own life. It’s why, on aeroplanes, they say to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others.”

“But I’m okay,” Yifan pointed out, lifting his arm up. “Don’t think of the hypotheticals in this situation if they haven’t happened. I didn’t need an ‘oxygen mask’ and you did, so I helped you.”

Yixin looked as Yifan for a while, making him feel unsettled as he slowly brought his arm back down to his side. She was methodical in how she took him in. She started at the hands, watching how they fidgeted and moved. She went up to the shoulders, scanning from left to right, then back again a few times. Then she focused on the lips, whether Yifan bites and licks at them were in nervousness. She finished at the eyes, inducing the feeling that she was probing Yifan’s very soul in magnified detail. He could tell all of this in the way she held herself, her spine made her sit confidently, despite her visibly weakened state.

“You’re not scared,” she said, finally.

“No, I’m not,” Yifan shrugged, not entirely sure how he was feeling at that moment in time. Though, he knew it definitely wasn’t fear. Not even knowing that she was something inhuman.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel scared right now.”

“You should,” Yixin scowled. “I’m a _vampire_.”

“But, I don’t. I’m fine. You’re fine. The people outside are fine,” Yifan argued back, feeling his defences crawl up as Yixin began to lean further toward him. “You may not be...human, but you haven’t hurt anybody. I wanted to help, okay? And, nothing bad happened.”

“It was stupid.”

“Sometimes people do stupid things, especially when you’re running on as little sleep and food as I am. I may not be entirely rational right now, I take that. Though, maybe you should appreciate it that I did this idiotic thing for you.”

The door swung open and in walked one of the nurses, smiling and making a surprised sound at the sight of Yixin sitting upright on the bed.

“Ah, I see you’ve had a drink,” was the first phrase the nurse spoke, making both Yixin and Yifan’s eyes widen in panic. But then, the nurse made her way to where Yifan had put his plastic cup. “Do you want some more? I can get some from the cooler before we give you a quick check-up.”

“Yes, please,” Yixin smiled, teeth looking normal in her mouth. No extended canines in sight.

“Okay,” the nurse walked back a little. “I’ll be back in a second.”

As soon as she was gone, Yixin pulled all of her hair over one shoulder and rubbed her eyes.

“Look, I’m completely thankful and appreciative of what you did for me. But, I need to make sure you know not to do something like that again. Offering your blood to _things_ like me isn’t safe - you could be signing your life away.”

“I know that,” Yifan sighed, standing up and even making his way to the door. He was getting ready to leave. “I’m just… I was curious, and I know that’s dumb. But, I don’t regret it either.”

“I’m not expecting you to regret it. In fact, I don’t want you to. You’re clearly somebody who values others before himself and I wouldn’t want you to change that admirable trait. The point I’m making is, don’t risk dying for _creatures,_ like me.”

Yifan didn’t respond, but opened the door to let himself out. He bumped into the nurse for a second and she jolted slightly at the sight of him, splashing the water in the cup and over her hand.

“Are you leaving?” She asked, not raising her voice nay higher than a whisper. “You’re not staying here to be with your friend?”

“It’s late,” he points out, moving his wrist to check the time and show it to the nurse. “I really want to go to bed.”

“If you give me a few minutes, I’ll be done with your friend and then you can go together.”

Yifan looked back over his shoulder, observing how Yixin’s eyes scanned the whole room for a few moments before resting on his body again. He wasn’t sure if it was conscious, but she smiled at him, blinking slowly, showing her appreciation.

Waiting in the entrance area was what he decided upon, which he relayed back to nurse prior to walking down the corridor to sit on one of the hard plastic chairs. He could hear the boisterous chatter of the drunk men from the examination room, laughing to himself at how little sense any of them appeared to be making as a police officer walked past the doorway. Yifan knew the officer would struggle to get anything coherent out of them and, from his expression, Yifan was sure that they knew that, too.

It was soft entertainment as Yifan waited. It was something he could shake out of his brain as Yixin emerged from the doctor’s office, Yifan’s jacket held tightly in her hands, shoes back on her feet and the cup of water held by the nurse behind her.

“Remember to stay hydrated, Ms Zhang,” the nurse appeared to be reminding Yixin, who smiled genially at her. “Dehydration isn’t something to be taken lightly.”

“I know.”

Yifan rose up from his chair and Yixin drifted to his side, they both bowed at the woman and turned to leave the infirmary. Yifan could feel tiredness throughout his body, especially his stinging eyes. The cool air helped to keep him awake, and he was sure he was feeling it even more, having had less blood in his body than he normally would.

“Do you need your jacket back?” Yixin’s question had Yifan’s head whipping around to look at her, her arm extended with Yifan’s coat hanging from it. “It’s not so warm this evening.”

“No, it’s fine,” he waved his hand, dismissing the suggestion. “I’ll be asleep on my feet if I put that on. You can return it to me some other time.”

“If you’re sure,” she muttered.

They walked silently after then, taking their time to weave through the streets Yifan had walked along to bring Yixin to the infirmary. He trailed slightly behind her, his left hand taking off his watch to tuck it into his pocket and look at where the bandage had been wrapped around his wrist. Part of his brain told him that he wasn’t fearful of the person - _the vampire_ \- walking ahead of him because it didn’t feel real.

He was a rational person, he knew that the existence of the supernatural had to be some kind of fallacy, and what he had experienced just didn’t fit with that. He had felt the pain of teeth sinking into his flesh. He knew it was real. But, it didn’t feel it.

“I live over here,” Yixin whispered, coming to a halt in front of a building.

“Oh, okay,” Yifan nodded his head. “If you want to get my jacket back to me, I live two streets away in the fourth building from the corner. In 6B. Other than that, I guess, I’ll see you.”

“Thank you, Yifan,” Yixin’s voice raised slightly, sounding firmer and far more sincere. “I mean it. I really am totally grateful for what you did.”

She turned away from him and walked up the stairs to front door, tapping in the access code with her back to Yifan.

“Yixin,” he called out, not knowing why he was speaking. But he lifted his bandaged arm, “If you ever need, you know, help again, I’m willing to help with a _donation._ ”

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Yixin peered around at him over her shoulder, letting her hair fan out across her face.

“Maybe.”

Yixin smiled at him, showing the soft dent of her dimple as she pushed the door open with both of her hands. “It’s not funny.”

“But, you’re amused.”

“Only a little. 

 

 

 

❂❂❂

 

 

The next time Yifan saw Yixin, it was merely for a few moments. He was walking from one university building to another, trying to put his books into his backpack whilst he tried to fish his arm through the sleeve of his denim jacket.

She was walking with three others, smiling and laughing as they bantered with one another. Her long hair was bound up in two plaits going over her shoulders, coming to a stop at her midsection and one of her friends was tugging on them. Yifan stopped to watch her go past for a few moments, noting how much more healthy she looked, with her lips a vibrant red and her skin glowing with more warmth.

After a few seconds, she turned her head and met Yifan’s gaze. She turned away as if she had been the one that had been caught staring. And that’s when Yifan realised that she may have been found out doing something else. She was wearing his jacket.

Yixin had rolled it up at the sleeves and it dropped low down her body, it made Yifan smile, seeing her in his peacoat. She lifted her hand up to wave at him, which he returned with an easy flick of his wrist.

Her friends followed where she was looking, trailing around until they saw Yifan. He dropped his hand quickly, but it appeared that the damage had been done. Even though he couldn’t hear it, he knew that they were teasing Yixin. One of them even pulled at one of the buttons on the coat, laughing as they gestured in Yifan’s direction.

They disappeared off after few minutes, having rounded a corner. But, Yifan could imagine the sound of their laughter. And he was glad, Yixin hadn’t looked as starved as she had been before. It was a relief to see.

 

 

 

 

❂❂❂

 

 

"Hey, there's some girl at the door for you," Lu Han called out, barging into Yifan's room without asking. "Says you might want to be quick going down to see her."

Yifan's eyebrows creased. He wasn’t aware of any girls that would call by, especially not on a random Thursday evening.

"I didn't know you were the type for booty calls."

"I'm not,” Yifan refuted, pulling on some sweatpants and a shirt that looked relatively clean. “Did you let her in?”

“I buzzed her in through the main door, but she’s not in the apartment. Though, I want to know who she is?” Lu Han leant against the jamb of Yifan’s door, his honey coloured hair splayed into a mess on his head. It was obviously the end of Lu Han’s daily afternoon nap. “Because she seems to know you and that you live here. And Tao’s at his parents’ place, so I don’t want weird people hanging around if we don’t have our resident guard dog.”

“I don’t know who it is.” Yifan approached him. He stopped in front of his shorter roommate and stared down at him. “But, if you move out of the way, I’ll be able to tell you.”

Lu Han squinted his eyes slightly and bit his lip, clearly thinking things through. “Can I watch? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you interact with a girl before…”

“Sure,” Yifan huffed, placing his hands on Lu Han’s shoulders and pushing him down the corridor. He guided him through the apartment, past the other bedrooms of their other roommates to the little foyer of their flat. “Just stay quiet.”

Yifan let Lu Han go and shuffled past him. He opened up the door and a cold hand grabbed at his as soon as the gap was wide enough. It was a shock at first but he recognised the cool skin against his. She looked up at him, so wide eyed and fearful in her expression.

“Yixin?”

“Yifan, I need to-” She spotted Lu Han past Yifan’s shoulder and let her words die out. “It’s happened again.”

“Oh.” Yifan was fully aware that his face had dropped in its expression as he pulled her into the apartment. “Let’s go to my room.”

Yixin held onto Yifan’s arm and he could feel her swaying on her feet, close to passing out again, and he looped an arm around her waist. She rested her weight on him and her head began to loll slightly, her hair falling in front of her face. But, Yifan didn’t need to see her in detail to know she was painfully pale. Especially if the icy note the temperature of her skin took was anything to go by. The suede rucksack on her back couldn’t have been helping with her balance either, not with how Yifan could see it straining on her shoulders.

“Who’s this?” Lu Han queried curiously. “She doesn’t look too good. Maybe we should take her to the hospital.”

“It’s okay,” Yifan dismissed, half-hauling Yixin in the direction of his bedroom. “She just needs to rest for a while.”

“Are you sure? She looks like she’s about to die, Yifan.”

“Yeah,” Yifan mumbled. “It’s not the first time this has happened. For your own good, leave us alone for a while.”

He left Lu Han behind and kicked his door closed, shutting his roommate out as he set Yixin on his bed. He sat down beside her and lifted her body around until her head was in line with his neck. Almost instantly, her nose was pressed up against his jugular vein and her dry sandpaper feeling tongue drew a line up it. She nibbled gently before the tips of her teeth cut through his skin.

It felt different to the first time. She sucked with her tongue flicking against his throat, it had fire spreading throughout Yifan’s body, directly from his throat and down into all of his extremities. Her fingers, when they regained a little more strength, curled into the back of his hair so tightly that Yifan had to lean his head into her fist. There was nothing gentle about her drinking habits, it was thirst driven but it didn’t hurt. It felt like so much more.

What it felt like was simply _fire._ Yifan couldn’t pull himself away and found himself groaning as he let his head go limp at the end of his neck. She moved around until she was straddling him, clutching Yifan to her mouth like he was what kept her alive. It had Yifan’s head spinning and Yixin’s hips rocked gently against his. It was nowhere near enough to arouse Yifan, still, it managed to make him feel pleasure in place of the burning.

He was gasping, moaning out as he held tightly to Yixin’s waist as everything rushed around him. It just stopped, and did so suddenly, when Yixin pulled back. She had blood smeared all over her chin and she chased after every droplet with her tongue, gulping them down.

“You taste like shit,” she grumbled. “What do you eat?”

Yifan was still reeling, body listless against the headboard of his bed and heart racing in the caging bones of his chest. And Yixin was still on his lap, still holding at Yifan but more softly than she had been seconds prior.

“Did you get,” Yifan searched for a word and felt like he had a numb mouth as he tried to moved it, “enough?”

“For the time being, yes,” Yixin whispered, leaning in to clean up the wound with her mouth. “That’ll be more than enough.”

She pulled her bag off her back and unzipped it. Yixin pulled an isotonic sports drink from it and opened it up with her mouth, she then placed it between Yifan’s lips and urged him to drink with her eyes. He did so and watched her as she pulled out a few bags of sweets and two sandwiches. She opened everything up then took the drink away from Yifan, placing all of the foods in the tiny gap between them.

“I didn’t know if you’d eaten yet,” she mumbled, obviously thinking aloud as she fumbled in her bag and brought out a healing patch. “I bought whatever I could from the convenience store a few blocks away. You can’t give blood and not eat.”

Yifan ate everything he could whilst Yixin fussed over his wound and ensured he drank enough. Soon, the numbness in his body ebbed away and life could be felt in his fingers and toes. It was enough to have Yifan’s brain slowing and eyesight tilting back into complete focus. But it felt like something else was coming, that there was an energy building up around his neck that hadn’t been expended.

“Why do you leave it so long?” Yifan probed, fingers rubbing on Yixin’s waist, hoping she’d reveal more if she was comfortable. Hoping that touching her would distract him from the sensations at his throat.

“Between feeds?” Yifan nodded his head in response to her and she sighed, running her fingers back up over Yifan’s neck to weave into the shorter hairs on Yifan’s nape. “I didn’t used to. There was this nurse that worked in the blood donation department of the hospital and I’d pay him to smuggle me out a few pints a week. But he’s stopped doing that now. For family reasons.”

The dots connected in Yifan’s mind. “The nurse, that’s who you were arguing with in the street that time?”

“Yeah,” Yixin confessed, moving her hands from Yifan’s hair and down on his shoulders. “His wife had a baby and, even though I pay him rather handsomely, he decided that it wasn’t worth the risk to steal anymore.”

“Then what have you been doing since then? It’s been over three months since that night. You can’t surely be able to go that long.”

“There are places you can meet people,” Yixin mumbled as she gripped a little tighter to Yifan’s shoulders. “There are humans that act like donors for people like me. Or, I pick people up from bars and I’ve drunk from them before they even realise it.”

Yifan squinted at Yixin, “How do these people not realise…?”

“Well, you know, sex tends to be the preferred method of distraction,” Yixin’s voice faded out as she talked more, sounding unsure of how Yifan would react.

But he could have assumed something similar on his own, especially with how often Lu Han and Zitao used to watch True Blood. Yifan was sure that the fiction was founded somewhere in truth, whether it be deep down or something more shallow. That was when he nodded at Yixin, massaging her warming flesh even more where he was holding.

“And I assume people think you’re a _biter?_ ”

Yixin snorted back her laughter whilst agreeing, relaxing as Yifan made light of the situation.

“But, don’t let yourself get to this point again, Yixin,” Yifan spoke in hushed tones, not wanting to startle her. “It doesn’t seem healthy to starve yourself to the point of collapse.”

“I know. I really, really hate blood bars. The people there, they’re too much for me and it’s overwhelming.” Yixin twiddled her fingers on the collar of Yifan’s shirt, picking at a stray thread that had been tickling on Yifan’s neck when he’d last worn it. “I can’t even use the same donor each time, not with all the health risks that it poses for them. It wouldn’t be fair to them, even if they offer. And, I can’t stand having to hop from human to human. Drinking in this way is supposed to be intimate. Not a business transaction.”

“That’s better than nothing, Yixin.”

“I don’t know, I like things being personal - or having no physical other involved at all.”

“You want all or nothing, then.”

Yixin smiled at him, “That’s the kind of person I am.”

They sat there, hands on each other’s bodies and Yifan could feel his body reeling with what he knew was blood loss. The wound on his throat _burned_ and in a way that he’d never felt before.

Yifan had numerous encounters with ropes, carpets and scalding water, but the puncture wounds in his neck felt like it was in flames. He cringed, jolting his neck to the side and he could not stop his eyes from clenching shut at the same time.

“It’s okay,” Yixin soothed. “Breathe through it. It’ll pass in a few moments, it’s my saliva on the wound.”

Yifan felt like he was being strangled by an invisible hand, like fingers were crawling deep underneath his skin to wrap around his windpipe, all to send molten metal down through his bloodstream until it cooked him from the inside out. He wanted to beg Yixin to make it stop, to take the pain away. But he could barely even formulate a sound. Nothing other than a muted scream escaped his gaping lips. He knew his fingers on Yixin’s waist were would have been gripping to her in a painfully tight hold.

“Don’t panic, Yifan. Concentrate on getting air in and out of your body, that’ll help you through this. Fixate on the small things. On breathing. On how my body feels. On anything other than the way it appears to scorch you.”

It took longer than Yixin made it seem to allay back the fire, Yifan wanted to writhe around on his mattress to expel the energy from his body, but Yixin kept him grounded. After a while, he was able to open his eyes and look into her’s. Her pupils were blown with calm concern, no panic in sight. And Yifan knew that only came with experience…and age.

As quickly as the blaze had started, it dwindled to nothing other than embers at the tips of his bones and nerves.

And Yifan couldn’t stop himself from laughing as everything faded away to numbness. It hurt to do it, he choked and spluttered around his gasped chuckles, but he didn’t know how else to handle the look in the eyes of the vampire in front of him.

“What are you laughing at?” The smile grew on Yixin’s face and Yifan knew it was the uncontrollable kind. Meaning Yifan’s laughter was infectious. “Has the pain gone away?”

“I,” Yifan coughed out, “I realised that you’re probably really old.”

_”What?”_

Yifan sucked air into his lungs, no matter how much it hurt. “You’re a vampire, right? You seem to have your shit together, with your control or whatever they call it in films. You can’t be my age.”

“I was born in the fifties.”

“Shit, you’re older than my mother.”

“Yifan, has the pain gone away?” Yixin grinned, clearly ignoring what Yifan had said. Her fingers stayed in his hair, they trailed over his scalp and her nails tugged gently at the strands. “Does it burn anymore?”

Yifan simply shook his head, allowing it to become a way to shirk off the rest of what echoed in his body and answer her question. Her hands skimmed down from his hair to rest on his shoulders, lightly massaging them with her fingertips.

Unprompted, Yixin let her hushed explanation drift between them, “The burning is from my saliva. Human bodies don’t know how to react to it most of the time, so it translates it to pain, because that’s what’s easiest.”

“Are there ways to avoid it? Like, exposure to get used to it?”

“There are a couple of ways, and yeah, I guess exposure is one.” Yixin leant forward and pressed her nose to the side of Yifan’s neck, right over his bite. “But that takes too long and isn’t very pleasant. My favourite way is, well, a little more _physical_. Because, like I said before, I like intimate.”

Each word was spoken with hot breath against Yifan’s skin, causing a prickling sensation across the top of his skin that sunk deep down into the base of his spine. The simmering heat that came was different to what he’d felt before, it made an ever so slightly lustful beast emerge from the lower depths of his stomach.

Yifan knew that if he wasn’t holding onto Yixin’s waist, his fingers would be balled up or trembled at the mere closeness of their bodies. It was a magical feeling, to be on the cusp of lightheadedness with pleasantly warm blood licking down Yifan’s veins.

Yifan breathed out on her jaw, head tilting to allow Yixin to nose up the vein under his skin. Yixin giggled as Yifan’s exhale blew onto her neck in return. “So, you can make it feel different. Different, how?”

“I’m sure you can think of how I could do that,” Yixin hummed cryptically as she leant away from Yifan’s torso and slipped back from his thighs. She began to rise up from his lap to stand on the floor. “You’re a clever boy.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

Yixin shrugged, her lips pinned into her cheeks in a wide grin that made her look far more delicate than he knew she was.

“All I know is that it can make the pain go away _and_ make things more than worth your while.”

“If you wanted to have sex with me, you could have just asked.” Yifan’s bold words shocked Yixin into spluttering out a sharp laugh and the way his expression mirrored her’s was unstoppable.

“I’ll remember that for next time.”

“There’ll be a next time?”

Yixin moved forward until she was millimetres from Yifan’s face, “Of course there will be.”

 

 

 

 

❂❂❂

 

 

Lu Han was watching Yifan from where he was at in their living room. He kept shifting his head from side to side, as if pondering something at the sight of Yifan typing up an assignment on his laptop. Yifan ignored it at first, but after twenty minutes, it began to irk him.

“Do you have nothing better to do with your day?” Yifan posed the question without meeting Lu Han’s eyes, but when he didn’t reply, Yifan was sure to face him. “Or is this a new pastime?”

“You’re different,” was Lu Han’s final choice of words. “You’ve got this positive air about you but you look so _drained_ all the time. Some mornings, you get up and you’re this weird shade of grey for a while. Then you’re fine for so long then it happens again. Are you okay? Are you doing something with that girl you’re dating?”

“We aren’t,” Yifan started but paused to take a breath, “we’re not dating.”

“I thought you said you weren’t the type for booty calls.”

“I’m not-”

“Then are you dating? Because the sounds that come from your bedroom whenever she stays over say something different to me.” Lu Han had moved, he was leaning forward on his arms as he challenged Yifan and Yifan was lost. He was trying to scramble for any words in his brain that he could string together in a coherent explanation. But, he couldn’t. “I want to know because sometimes you look like you’re about to die.”

“I’m fine,” Yifan promised, closing his eyes. “We’ve got something complicated and a little unconventional going on, it’s hard to define. But, sometimes she stays the night and sometimes I look a little pale.”

Lu Han turned his nose up slightly, eyes widening at how ambiguous Yifan’s explanation was. “Whatever you’re doing, just don’t involve me in it. I don’t want to look like my soul has literally been sucked out of my body.”

Yifan took no more notice to his roommate other than a simple eye roll. He stretched his legs out and switched the television on, playing an episode of a drama Lu Han had prattled on at him about the week before. They watched it silently until Lu Han stood up and left the room.

Lu Han called from the kitchen a few minutes later, returning with two cups of noodles in his hands and passing one to Yifan. “Have you thought about taking your relationship with the hot junior to a sex dungeon? You know, for those BDSM urges you seem to be having?”

“Lu Han, whatever you think is going on,” Yifan laughed in his seat, “it’s not that.”

“If you say so.”

 

  

 

❂❂❂

 

 

The thought of teeth plunging into his body and drawing out the fluid from his veins had simply been a mere part of what was always in Yifan’s mind. Another small prick in the back of his skull was the pleasure that rushed alongside that. However, in his head the most, was purely Yixin. In every sense. She was everywhere around him. The deodorant and perfume she sprayed in the mornings lingered in Yifan’s room, on all of his clothes and even his bedsheets. She was even everywhere he looked at university, between classes and basketball practice. And then, the way she smiled burnt itself into the sight he saw whenever he closed his eyes.

He felt like he was getting too close.

Some nights Yixin wouldn’t even feed on him, she’d merely knock on the front door and be there. Not to feed. But, just to be _there_. Yifan’s heart always rippled when that happened because, essentially, Yixin didn’t need sleep. Yet, she’d always be there in the morning, exactly as naked as she had been when Yifan had fallen asleep. She’d make sure Yifan ate breakfast, and sometimes lunch, before sauntering back out the front door.

Those were the slow days.

Slow breathing, slow sex, slow motion.

The hard-hitting ones were when the thirst was there, of when Yixin couldn’t help herself from striking into one of Yifan’s arteries. She’d have him pressed against the bed, pinned beneath strength she never looked like she had, and she’d help herself to everything under Yifan’s skin. And, it never hurt. The furious jolts of magma that had once bolted through Yifan’s body no longer came. They were replaced by waves of pleasure that curled around each tip of his fingers and each tip of his toes.

He was unsure of which he liked best when he’d first discovered the difference. And then Yixin came to him, kissing him slowly and pulling him out of his hoody, all with her extended teeth grazing along his lower lip. He knew he could have both at once.

She was thirsty, not dauntingly weak but getting there, when she pushed Yifan through his bedroom door, both of them laughing quietly at the catcalls Yifan’s roommates sent them off with. It was Lu Han who ran and picked up Yifan’s hoody to throw it into his bedroom before the door was slammed shut by one of Yixin’s hands. Yifan was swift in peeling up Yixin’s dress and he ran his hands up her back as he did so. She shuddered at the action, which Yifan quietly snorted at.

“Shut up,” she hissed whilst she let him go to unhook her bra and drop it to the floor. Yifan put his own hands on the button and zipper of his jeans and loosened them, entirely enough to pull the black denim to the floor. “I’m starved.”

Those words were usually accented with Yixin shoving Yifan onto the bed before she pulled herself out of her own jeans. But, on that day, she wrapped her arms around Yifan’s neck to pull them completely in line. Her eyes were open and they shone confidently underneath the hunger that had darkened them. It was different. Still, the way it affected Yifan was all the same.

Yifan drew them towards the bed and nudged Yixin down far enough that she laid herself across the duvet. Yixin pushed herself up the bed, she stripped off her underwear and Yifan followed, shuffling out of his boxers as he crawled over her. He kissed her stomach first then made his way up to her sternum, being sure to breathe heavily there to bring goosebumps to the top of her skin.

They barely made any noise as they began, Yifan’s fingers rubbing between Yixin’s legs as her hands kept their mouths aligned. Yifan teased her for a few moment, flicking his tongue against her teeth to let a few droplets of blood roll out onto her tongue. She whimpered every so often, and Yifan could not tell if it was from the taste of his blood in her mouth or if it was from the work of his fingers as they circled around her clit.

In a few stray strokes of his index finger downwards, Yifan drew some of the pleasantly warm wetness up from Yixin’s hole and up to lubricate his teasing actions. Yixin always bit down on Yifan’s lower lip when he teased at pushing his fingers inside of her, and he could feel the spasm of her inner clenching to coax him inside. Most often, when she was too impatient for Yifan’s playing, she’d merely push his hand away in favour of grinding against Yifan’s right thigh, leaving a slightly moist heat in her path.

It was when he fingered her that she began to be more vocal, though not by much. She would sigh and dig her nails into wherever she was holding onto on Yifan’s body, that’s how Yifan knew he’d managed to make her feel good.

Yixin’s thirst is what spurred them on to act faster and with more intent, as her mouth would slide down the side of Yifan’s face and linger at his neck. She’d lick and suck, open-mouthed, over Yifan’s vein, as if she could taste it through his flesh. Yifan’s hand would dive into his bedside drawer and bring out a condom, and his fingers would always tremble slightly as he rolled it on.

Yifan always loved entering Yixin and he always had to breathe himself through it, all with Yixin sighing around the feeling of Yifan sliding into her. When she was thirsty, she’d normally ride Yifan, trying to reach her peak of pleasure and appetite all at once. But when Yifan ground his hips and slowly began to pull out of her, she made no effort to switch their positions over.

Yifan fucked her gently, soaking in the sensation of her cool skin on his where she wrapped around him. Her legs were hooked around his waist and her hands in separate places, one in Yifan’s hair and another splayed on his back. She whimpered as Yifan’s mouth coasted its way down to one of her breasts, his tongue toying with her nipple as he sucked it into his mouth. The string of profanities whispered from her lips were more than enough for him, and the clenching around his cock was an added bonus.

From then, he pushed into her with slightly more force and that’s when Yixin’s body reacted in its most animalistic fashion. She held at Yifan tightly for a few seconds before placing her hands on his hips, using her waning strength to urge Yifan on to go faster and harder. Her teeth were stretched out over her lip, calling for Yifan’s neck to be punctured and Yifan didn’t resist when she gave into her instincts.

All that was left for him to do was to thrust into her in earnest, chasing pleasure instead of pain from the bite. She sucked and lapped at the wound, taking everything she wanted from Yifan’s body as he began to let out high-pitched keens from the back of his throat.

It didn’t take long for Yifan’s head to feel like it was floating away from him. The blood loss always left him weakened, so Yixin took over. She flipped them around, pressing Yifan’s back directly onto the duvet and lifted her hips up as she drank from him.

Her orgasm came in a sudden wave. Yifan’s fingers stuck between their bodies as he rubbed her clit in the circular and diagonal motions she told him she liked best. Her body had enough blood to push her towards a newer height and she came down with a rush of warmth around Yifan’s cock and incessant twitching of her walls.

She panted hard, trying to gather herself up from her blood and sex-based lusts, and Yifan could sense where her hair was tickling at his body and he could barely roll his head back onto his pillow.

With her newfound strength, she fucked herself on his cock until he came with an increasingly limp juddering of his hips. Yifan’s eyes had rolled back and he could feel the sweat dribbling down his body, sticking strands of Yixin’s hair to his torso.

Yifan felt like he was dying as Yixin cleaned him up, even taking the condom off him and throwing that into the bin in the corner of the room. She made Yifan drink and eat anything she could find before shifting him under the covers and sliding in beside him. Yifan knew Yixin would be in the same position when he woke up, enjoying the sound of his heart beating in his chest, her body full of the glow of Yifan’s blood in each of her blood vessels.

 

 

 

 

❂❂❂

 

 

Yixin slid the bowl of noodles towards Yifan with a gentle shove, not wanting to slosh any of the broth out onto the table. Yifan could see different vegetables and some balls of meat floating around in it, right above the noodles.

“There are garlic and chilli oils in this,” Yixin blurted out, swirling the points of a pair of chopsticks above the floating globules of oil. “I didn’t know which you liked, so I put both.”

“I eat both,” Yifan reassured her as he looked around the bowl. “Where are my chopsticks?”

Yixin lifted the ones in her hands and pinched the tip of Yifan’s nose with them, making him jerk his head back. “Right here.”

Yifan reached out for them and Yixin pulled them back again quickly, laughing at him.

“Nuh-uh,” she shook her head. “These stay in my hands.”

“Why?”

“You feed me, I feed you.”

Her words made Yifan smile and he tilted his head to the side, imitating what Yixin did to him so many times.

“You’re wearing another one of my jackets. People really are going to get the wrong idea if they see you feeding me, too,” Yifan grumbled, trying to pretend that he didn’t feel completely endeared by Yixin’s actions. “And, can you stop taking them without asking? I started this year with six jackets, now I only have one.”

“We both know I wear them better,” Yixin challenged, getting an instant eye roll as Yifan’s sole response. “And anyway, what’s wrong with people thinking that we’re dating? I quite like that idea.”

Yifan parted his lips obediently as Yixin lifted some cabbage up to them, trying to not let her words dig into that little hole in his heart that had her name on it. Yixin pushed the vegetable into his mouth with a grin on her face that dented her dimple deep into her cheek. That sight was wholly bettered when she tucked a loose strand of her hair, a few long wisps that had fallen out of her ponytail, behind her ears, framing her glowing expression.

She was so confident, in the way she spoke and how she held herself, that it made Yifan’s chest thunder like the hoofbeats of a hundred horses. He didn’t want to think about what she’d said, or how radiant she looked for something so deadly.

“Why are you even doing this?” Yifan asked, distracting himself as he chewed the cabbage up and swallowed it. “I mean, I would have gone to get lunch anyway. I am sat in the canteen and that isn’t for no reason.”

“I know,” Yixin nodded her head, letting a couple of tresses fall in front of her face. “But, you eat foods that don’t always make your blood taste nice. Like, instant noodles? Gross. A good ramen bowl from the university’s canteen, however, is very yummy for me.”

“So, you’re not actually doing this to benefit me in any way?”

“Well, you sulk when I don’t drink from you,” Yixin pointed out. “And, this helps me drink from you faster.”

“Of course, this is all for you.”

“Don’t be like that, _Gege,_ you know I care about you and keeping you healthy.”

“Only healthy enough to be a living blood bag,” Yifan snorted as Yixin held an oval piece of potato up for him to bite into. “And don’t call me _Gege._ ”

“You act like you don’t like it, Yifan,” Yixin retorted, pushing yet more of the food towards him.

“Don’t like what?” Yifan challenged. “You acting like you’re the younger one - when you were actually born decades before me - or being a blood bag?”

“Whichever foot the boot fits on.”

“Just keep feeding me, _Jiejie._ ”

 

 

 

 

❂❂❂

 

 

Yifan saw the shadow cast under his bedroom door before it opened. Yixin slipped her legs in first and the rest of her lithe body followed after, then she crossed the floor to close his bedroom window. Yixin always complained about how cold Yifan kept his bedroom. But, he didn’t mind that because she’d looked different to how Yifan had last seen her. She was glowing, she was healthy, she was _full_. That meant she was warm, which was exactly what Yifan felt when he touched her hand and pulled her to sit at the edge of his bed.

“You’ve fed,” he noted, not wanting to sound too bitter about it.

“You’re still recovering,” she responded evenly. However, he knew she saw right through him as she cupped his cheek with what felt like inhuman heat. “You know I can’t take from you as often as I need to feed.”

“I know,” Yifan hummed, leaning back against his headboard as he observed how Yixin sat cross-legged at the end of his mattress. He smiled in a small curl, allowing it to accent his words as he said, “I never was good at sharing.”

“Who could have guessed?” Yixin rose up onto her knees and crawled up beside him, draping her body onto his to keep her on the bed. “It’s almost been a year and you’re still not ready to let me sink my teeth into another human, or blood bag, for that matter.”

“It makes me feel weird,” Yifan confessed. He moved his hand to rest at Yixin’s throat, the mirror point of where she took from Yifan whenever she was ready to feed on him. “It’s not my blood in you, keeping you healthy. It’s somebody else’s.”

“Yifan…” She had smiled as she spoke. “Are you jealous?”

Yifan didn’t respond and focused on his laptop screen, since he didn’t like the way Yixin’s question hit right on the mark. He _was_ jealous. He wanted to be the only person in Yixin’s bloodstream. It wasn’t fair, in his mind, that he was left with her constantly under his skin, but he was rarely beneath hers. Hands took Yifan’s laptop from his thighs and, soon after, he had a pouting vampire sat on them instead. She lifted Yifan’s hands and held them, she pressed the backs of Yifan’s fingers to her cheeks, right over where her cheeks were flushed with the blood of somebody else.

“Don’t be jealous,” she whispered, still grinning. “You know you’re my favourite. I tell you this every time.”

Her teeth appeared from between his lips, they poked out in their usual pearly shimmer and Yifan’s skin prickled.

“Nobody tastes as good as you anymore,” she confessed, taking in a deep breath as Yifan’s wrists neared her nose and she skimmed her teeth over the translucent flesh. “Maybe a sip won’t hurt. To get rid of their taste.”

Yifan watched her teeth pierce his skin with a gentle push of her canines, it was the first time since the first night that she’d used his wrist to draw his blood. And, all she took was a small gulp before she licked at his wound. It wasn’t as intense as their normal exchanges, the sharp pain didn’t fade to pleasure and Yifan didn’t feel the suction ache around his wounds. He knew his body could cope with the poison of Yixin’s saliva.

Even if she had done it to quell his jealousy, Yifan felt his ego bloat with a sense of confidence that _he_ was the person she loved drinking from.

“I wish you didn’t have to find other people or steal that bagged stuff,” Yifan admitted, serving as a confirmation for what he’d speculated. “I don’t like that my body can’t be enough to keep you alive as it is now.”

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Yixin reminded him, taking her hair down from where it had been tied up and shook her head to make it fan out over her body. “And I always come back to you, that has to mean something.”

That’s what he always told himself.

“Stay over?” He asked her, pressing a kiss to the apple of her cheek.

Yixin wasn’t shy in using her strength to get Yifan to lay down, giving her space to curl up on him and rest her head on his chest. “I wouldn’t be here this late if that wasn’t my plan.”

“But, you don’t even sleep. Time doesn’t make a difference for you,” Yifan hummed, playing with the tips of her hair and threading it between his fingers. “You don’t need to be here.”

“Then isn’t it obvious that I want to be here,” Yixin whispered, turning her head to look up at Yifan. “Maybe I actually like spending time with you and want to be around you.”

“No, you just want to kill me in my sleep.”

Yixin stood up from the bed and turned out the lights, easily making her way back to the position she was in before. “Yifan, you literally give your blood up to me, surely I’d kill you like that?”

“Then I’ll say you can’t drink from me anymore.”

“You just got jealous because I feed elsewhere.”

“I don’t know why I put up with this constant threat to my life.”

“Because you love me?”

“Hmm, maybe.”


End file.
